In various industries, the ability to monitor, track, predict and/or act in real-time is desirable. These industries include electric power, gas pipeline, water systems, transportation, chemicals and processes, infrastructure protection, security monitoring and others.
By way of example, in the electric power industry, power is typically supplied to customers in a four stage process of generation, transmission, distribution and end use. FIG. 1A illustrates a typical process of generation, transmission and distribution of electricity. As illustrated in FIG. 1A, the electricity is generated competitively by a number of power plants. The electricity is then transmitted through a number of transmission lines that are regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). These transmission lines, which may be located in different states, are typically owned by the utility or transmission companies, and controlled by regional Independent System Operators (ISOs), Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) or utility companies that may be private or public. The generation and transmission of electricity are usually managed by regional entities that monitor the grid operations, market operations, security and other aspects of the electric power system.
The transmitted electricity is typically distributed through state or locally regulated distribution companies. The transmission and distribution systems utilize a number of devices for management and control of the electric system, including dynamic voltage support, remedial action schemes, capacitors, storage and flow control devices. The electricity is distributed to the customers as the end users, or consumers of electricity. Some of the customers may also have micro-grids of their own. The demand placed by these customers also needs to be managed.
Due to the enormous task at hand, there are a number of organizations responsible for overseeing these power generation, transmission and distribution activities. For example, there are over 3,000 utilities, thousands of generators, 22 Reliability Coordinators, and 153 Control Areas (CAs) in the United States for monitoring and control of generation, transmission and distribution of electricity. While all these different entities at various different levels are involved in generation, transmission and distribution of electricity as well as monitoring and control in a power grid, there is no single integrated system that can be used to monitor and manage the electric power grid in real-time across all of the different elements of the power system. For example, there is no information management system for the power grid, which is integrated across multiple business systems, companies and Control Areas to manage the security, timeliness, accuracy or accessibility of information for grid operations, reliability, market operations and system security. Analogous issues may be apparent in other industries.